EMC launches VSPEX, touts flexibility, configurations

Vendors are crawling over each other to be known as the most flexible IT infrastructure provider.

EMC launched VSPEX, an infrastructure stack whose reference architecture is designed to be flexible enough to bridge data centers with cloud computing.

The storage giant's move comes a day after IBM launched PureSystems. The two data center infrastructure plays from EMC and IBM aren't comparable, but the general theme of flexibility is. EMC VSPEX's architecture was cooked up with Brocade, Cisco, Citrix, Intel, Microsoft and VMWare.

Vendors increasingly seem to be talking the flexibility, integration and open game. HP's recent cloud computing service and systems launch included similar lingo.

EMC's goal appears to be to offer an integrated "best of breed" stack. The VSPEX gear includes storage from EMC, virtualization from Microsoft, Citrix and VMWare and networking via Brocade and Cisco. Intel chips power the system.

VSPEX is broken down into 14 of the most popular cloud configurations. Options for private cloud deployments support VMware vSphere 5.0 or Microsoft's Hyper-V with 50 to 250 virtual machines supported.

EMC, which is selling VSPEX through its channel partners, is touting simple, efficient and flexible data center gear.